Since the 1st of July 2018, Parkdale has been an Academy as part of the Transform Trust. We have had a long and successful partnership with Transform, having been a part of the Transform Teaching School Alliance for several years previously.
The Transform Trust was formed in 2013 and we became the 15th member school. All are Primary schools. The majority of these are local to us in Nottingham City, with a smaller number in Derby. The Trust has a strong link with Nottingham University Department of Education and works closely with leading educationalists there.

The decision to join the Trust was taken by Governors, who felt that school improvement could be enhanced by greater involvement in the training and support available to member schools. Having considered a number of alternatives, it was apparent that this trust best shared our child-centred philosophy and values. Importantly, Transform school maintain their own identity and uniqueness, with many decisions affecting day to day running of the school remaining with the local Governing Body.

Our staff engage with numerous support networks, sharing good practice, visiting and hosting colleagues from other settings and our children are involved in many of the enrichment events arranged through the Trust.

You can find out more about the Transform Trust here 

In 2022, Parkdale staff and children were part of the process of developing the Transform Children’s Charter – a vision of what childrena cross the Trust want, hope for and expect from their schools. As it becomes embedded, this charter informs our practice and is used to hold us accountable.

The short film below outlines the content of the charter and is a good guide to our aims, values and ambitions.

At Parkdale Primary, we aim to offer a rich and engaging school experience in which children are willing partners in their own learning. They enjoy school, form friendships for life and become responsible, respectful young people. Our curriculum is diverse, thought-provoking, creative, inspirational and tailored to be relevant to the lives and interests of our pupils. We aim to provide a wealth of memorable moments and experiences. We are committed to delivering a broad curriculum and not to narrow our focus to the ‘tested’ areas. This is what our Governors, parents, other stakeholders and pupils have told us that they want and expect.
Our most recent Quality Assurance Visit noted the breadth and quality of our curriculum as a major strength, particularly in sport and the Arts. Subsequent QA visits from the Trust have supported this view. We are currently in a period of curriculum review. Having consulted at length with stakeholders, we have adopted a ‘values-led’ curriculum

Our Learning Values

Our learning values should be evident in all that we do at school. We draw focus to each individual value over the course of a half term. Children are taught about the constituent elements of each value and begin to understand the importance that we place in each. Assemblies are used to introduce and explore the values in greater depth. We also try to incorporate the value in other curriculum areas whenever possible. By emphasising the importance of these key tenets we aim to embed these values within our curriculum, our staff and our pupils.

The curriculum builds upon The Transform Trust’s core values and our Teaching and Learning Values, providing opportunities and situations for children to practise and develop these skills and attributes throughout their time at school. Encompassing this- and the British Values- alongside this knowledge rich, concept driven, blended curriculum, we endeavour to create successful global citizens ready for the challenges that lay ahead in our ever changing world.  

Our three ‘driver values and themes are:

Environmental Responsibility & Sustainability

Peace, Social Fairness and Equality
Identity,

Diversity and Wellbeing

These form the core of our topic work and much of our English. All lead to children undertaking a termly ‘real-world’ social campaign or activity.
As well as these drivers, we explicitly aim to engender the following skills and attitudes:

• Collaboration is crucial to successful, independent learning. Through effective collaboration we begin to understand the importance of cooperation, of taking turns, of respecting difference and diversity, of friendship, of being fair, of sensitive listening and of unity.

• Resilience is about being determined to succeed, setting a goal and sticking to it. We aim to foster a willingness to take risks and an acceptance of failure. We take positives from all that we do and learn from our mistakes. We are responsible for our own learning and develop high self-esteem.

• Compassion is about kindness and concern, about friendship and love, about communicating effectively and understanding the needs of others. Through our focus on this value we expect to develop thoughtful, considerate children who are empathetic, respectful and kind.

• Creativity and Innovation is the value through which we hope to inspire children to appreciate their individuality, to be imaginative and inquisitive, to inspire and be inspired! We aim to nurture originality and dynamism through continued exposure to the latest design, technological innovations and art.

• Exploration – all children love to explore. By focusing on this value we aim to encourage children to become active learners and to be curious and confident when experiencing new things. Exploring the world beyond their own classroom will help to develop a respect for nature and a love for the outdoors. We like children to try new things out, independently or with appropriate support.

​A variety of experiences and opportunities are provided for all children to enrich the curriculum, broaden their horizons, promote digital connectedness and raise aspirations.  We believe that everyone is a leader- adults and children. We promote this in our children from an early age; we want them to see themselves in the curriculum and have a strong vision for their own future. We pride ourselves in changing this curriculum to reflect the current world we live in.​

Children in Reception follow the national ‘Early Years Foundation Stage’ curriculum and learn through a mix of self-chosen and directed play, exploration and some formal teaching. All children are taught synthetic phonics.

From Years 1 to 6, the curriculum covers similar skills and concepts to the National Curriculum of 2014, although this has been adapted to reflect and be driven by our core driver values.

Subjects taught are English (Reading Writing, Speaking & Listening), Mathematics, Science, Geography, History, Physical Education, Religious Education, Music, Art, French and Design Technology.

Enrichment is important to us. School should be fun! We participate in the Transform Enrichment Diploma, programme of lots of extra activities for each year group. As well as this, we operate our own ’50 Things To Do Before You Leave Parkdale’ and try to facilitate as many of these in school as we can.
We run all sorts of after school clubs, trips and residential visits.

Relationships and Sex Education (SRE) From September 2020, Relationships Education became statutory in England. Community consultation on this was completed in the year 2020-21 (delayed due to the Covid situation).

At Parkdale, we focus on teaching the nationally expected content with regard to relationships. The content  is focussed on the Relationships aspect, preparing children for healthy relationships and developing understanding appropriate for life in modern Britain. Sex Education is not compulsory, but continues to be offered at Year 6 only. The right of withdrawal still exists for this.

Subject matter such as growing and developing and life-cycles is covered as part of the national Curriculum for Science.

Our curriculum includes Religious Education (R.E).The school is not affiliated to any religious denomination and we follow the guidelines from Nottinghamshire’s own agreed syllabus for Religious and Moral Education. Our Religious Education and Acts of Collective worship reflect broadly, and in the main, Christianity and Christian ideals. To reflect our community, we have weekly input from a representative of a local Mosque. Out assemblies focus on finding similarities and common ground between the beliefs of people of various faiths and those who of no faith. No one faith or belief is promoted over another and no child is made to pray or join in with anything inappropriate for their own family circumstance.

The syllabus also includes education relating to other world religions and we believe that it is important that our children know, understand and respect other people’s cultures and beliefs. The school will make arrangements for pupils whose parents who wish to exercise their right to withdraw their child from collective worship or Religious Education.

Swimming is part of the National Curriculum. There is an expectation that all pupils can swim at least 25m by the time they leave Primary school. Swimming is not optional. All of our pupils go swimming in Years 3 and 4 and continue in Years 5/6 if they have not managed 25m

We believe in getting children off to the best possible start. Our Early Years Team are all specialists, with a passion for their phase. They teach the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum. Much of this involves learning through play.

In September 2021, we realised a long-term ambition to open our own Nursery, admitting children from 3 years. The work to create a Nursery provision comlpeted a long-term project to develop top class accomodation and resources for Early Years, which has included creating a highly specialised staff team, building work, development of outdoor play facilities and a huge amount of new resources.

You can see much more of what our Nursery and Reception classes do at their own pages: 

Nursery page

Reception page

As well as class teachers, we have specialist Early Years teachers to provide additional support and to lead learning through play and experience.

We also employ a Speech & Language Therapist to support with early language and communication development.

In 2017, we were the winners of the Communication Trust’s national Shine a Light Awards – Primary Setting of the Year.
The educational charity Challenge Partners has accredited our Early Years as an Area of Excellence (Spring 2019).

Our team will organise a variety of transition events to enable pre-school children (and their parents/carers) to visit and get used to their new surroundings.
They also put on lots of special events, including ‘coffee and cornflakes’ socials before school, demonstrations of how they teach phonics and number and much, much more.

Of course, our objective is to educate children to a high standard and to get them
ready for the next stage of their lives – socially and academically.

Our children have to complete statutory national assessments for which our results
are analysed and published by the DfE:
• At the start and end of Early Years
• In Phonics at the end of Year 1
• In Reading, Writing and Maths at the end of Year 2
• In Reading, Writing, Spelling Grammar and Punctuation, Maths at the end of
Year 6

Pupils are continually assessed by their teachers at all years in-between to check
their progress from their starting points. This may involve tests and/or observation
or deductions made from their ongoing work.
By the end of Key Stage Two, our pupils tend to be above national averages on most measures. This generalisation does not always hold true and different cohorts of pupils perform differently, as – naturally – do individuals

You can see more about our results here:

Our most recent OfSTED (May 2014) was ‘Good’ in all areas. We were due inspection in 2018, but academy conversion put this back for at least a further three years. Covid-19 has delayed that further.

We, our own Governors and the Transform Trust, all continually monitor and evaluate our provision and our results and we think we’re better now than then. Lots has changed. We would like to think that an ‘Outstanding’ judgement is a realistic aim for our next inspection.

However, we are reflective and responsive. There are aspects of our outcomes which
we want to improve. For example:  we have completely re-vamped our approach to the teaching of reading; we are developing our interventions to support Disadvantaged pupils, so that they achieve as well as their non-Disadvantaged peers.

Our staff are continually offered professional development to make them even better teachers. We work with networks of other schools to support one another in good practice. Much of this is within the Transform Trust, although we
still work closely with our local Notts County Council Family of Schools and engage some support services from Notts CC.

You can see our self evaluation and school imporvement priorities here:

We set homework and we do expect it to be done. It is an important part of learning and it backs up what we do in school.

Homework is set in line with Department for Education guidelines, the amount increasing as the children get older.

We expect regular reading, recorded in a ‘Reading Diary’, there are spellings (sometimes known as Rocket Words) and regular number skills practice, for example times tables.

We provide an online learning platform for maths, called IXL. This has focussed activities right from Reception to Year 6. New admissions will be given a login to this and it can be accessed from home. Many of our children use it several times a week and it has a great impact on their progress.
In response to consultation with parents and children, we adopted a ‘menu’ of homework from which children can choose activities. Many of these are designed to promote our ‘Learning Values’, the idea of studying or working at home and working collaboratively with an adult.

Many people have told us how much they have enjoyed working on a project with their children and we get some fabulous, creative results!

We have Gold and Enhanced Healthy Schools status, meaning we have been recognised for our work on physical and emotional wellbeing.

Recently, we were upgraded to the Gold Standard on the National School Games accreditation. This reflects the high levels of participation in sport, both within school and against others, along with the quality of our P.E. Much of our P.E is delivered by specialist sports coaches.

We run school teams in many sports – most notably, we have recently been county champions at football (girls) and cricket.

We are currently investing significantly in the development of cricket – our national Summer sport and one whihc means a great deal to many in our community.

We have recently changed our unifomr policy so that children come to school in their PE kit on ‘PE Days’. This creates more  time to be more active and reduces the ‘lost kit’ problems that can arise!

You can see our PE kit details in the Uniform Policy here: 

Our Sports Days are competitive and inclusive. Everyone takes part at their level and everyone’s participation scores points for their house.

We do have a uniform policy and we are quite strict about it! In the Winter, this includes a shirt and tie. This is not compulsory for our Reception children, but many of them still choose to wear a tie because it looks so smart.

Sweatshirts, jumpers and cardis are black. Trousers black or grey.
Some of our Muslim girls wear a hijab, which we ask to be black or grey.

In the Summer, polo shirts become an option, along with green ‘gingham’ dresses.
Our uniform supplier is currently Price and Buckland and you can buy online. 

Trainers are not allowed, other than for P.E. On the subject of which, we also have a P.E uniform – see Uniform Policy here: 

Admissions are not managed by us! You need to apply for a place via your Local Authority. Notts County Council if you live in the county, Nottingham City if you are a City resident.

These are the current criteria:

STANDARD RECEPTION CRITERIA:
INFANT AND PRIMARY SCHOOLS 2019-2020
1. Children looked after by a local authority and previously looked after children

2. Children who live in the catchment area at the closing date for applications and who, at the time of admission, will have a brother or sister attending the school or linked junior/primary school

3. Other children who live in the catchment area at the closing date for applications

4. Children who live outside the catchment area and who, at the time of admission, will have a brother or sister attending the school or the linked junior/primary school

5. Children who live outside the catchment area

You can check whether or not your address is in our catchment here:

We are a popular school, full in most years, with a waiting list. However, spaces do become available!

Our Planned Admission Number (PAN) is 60 per year group, giving us a capacity of 420 pupils in all. We are generally at or very close to this number at any given time.

See also our Admissions page

We provide a wide (and continually reviewed and expanding) range of extra-curricular activities and enrichment. In association with our P.E specialist provider, we run many sports clubs. These are inclusive and not dependent on ability.

We do run competitive sports teams, often at a very high standard. Selection for such fixtures is very much dependent on ability, though we do try to give everyone a go where possible.

Sports Clubs through the year include: Football (on many levels), Tag Rugby, Athletics, Hockey, Lacrosse, Cricket, Basketball, Table Tennis and many more.
Other clubs include Drama, Choir, Rock-Band, Needlework & Textiles, Science, Dance and more besides.

We offer Residential Adventure visits for Years 5 and 6 and all year groups get out and about where and when they can.

We operate an exciting enrichment programme called the Transform Enrichment Diploma (known to us as Ted!), alongside our own progammre ‘50 Things To Do Before You Leave Parkdale‘. 

Attendance matters! We expect our pupils to attend regularly and to be on time each day.

We have a member of the team responsible for supporting with attendance and they will get involved if a child’s attendance starts to cause us concern. This can involve referral to outside agencies where the concern is serious.

We do not authorise holidays in term-time and the attendance policy agreed by our Governors includes that we will request the issuing of Fixed Penalty Notices where unauthorised holiday is taken. Authorised leave in term-time is limited to small number of ‘exceptional circumstances’ which, by definition have to be unavoidable and which cannot be scheduled for other times. Examples include illness, visiting seriously ill relatives, funerals, important religious observances, immediate family weddings. Generally, we authorise the day only – with a day either side for travel if we agree it is necessary. For our Muslim pupils, we authorise one day for each Eid.

On the first day of absence due to illness, please phone the Office and leave a message. You can also email: absence3@parkdale.notts.sch.uk. If you do not contact us, we will contact you as we have a policy of checking up on any child not present where we do not know the reason.

We operate an unusual school start! This came about because families told us they liked the stagghered start we put in place during the Covid-19 pandemic. For our part, we valued the extra time this created to get children settled and learning each day. It also gives us extra time for wellbeing and giving children extra support.

1st arrival window: 8-15-8:25 for an 8:30 start

2nd arrival window: 8:30-8:40 for an 8:45 start

In both windows, parents can choose to wait with their children or drop them to a supervised area.

The school day ends at 3:30 for all children

Breakfast Club & After School Club: Home – The Lime Trees

 The Friends of Parkdale is a parent teacher association to which all parents and staff belong. Friends of Parkdale has two main functions, which are to organise social events for everyone associated with the school and to raise much needed extra funds to enhance the education of children at Parkdale.

The annual general meeting is held in October and all parents and staff are invited. If you would like to get involved or become a committee member, please come along to the AGM or call into the school office to contact the secretary of the Friends of Parkdale.

Our school dinners are lovely. They are provided by Aspens Catering and even lots of our staff tend to order them! There are always: two main meal choices, including a vegetarian option; a baguette option; a jacket potato option.

All of our meals meet strict nutritional standards and our kitchen as the highest possible hygiene rating.

Meals cost £2.30 (£1.95 for Nursery children) and are ordered directly from Aspens, once you have the relevant code from us.

We really encourage take-up of a dinner, but some children still prefer to have their own packed lunch, which is fine. You can choose to send your child with a packed lunch if you prefer. There are some rules about what this can contain, but essentially it needs to be a healthy mix and sweets and sugary/fizzy drinks are not allowed. Crisps and other salty, high fat snacks are discouraged.

Under current national policy, children in Reception and Key Stage 1 are all entitled to a free school meal.

Automatic Free School Meals stop at Year 3. If parents/carers are on certain benefits, they can apply for free school meals to continue. This is good for the school and good for the child as school also receives a significant amount of money, called Pupil Premium, to support the education of the child. This money buys us extra support, staff, resources etc

Who can apply?
You may qualify for free school meals if your child attends a Nottinghamshire County Council School and you receive one of the following benefits.

Child Tax Credit, provided they are not entitled to Working Tax Credit and have an annual income (as assessed by Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC)) that does not exceed £16,190

Income Support

income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA)
income-related Employment and Support Allowance (ESA)

income-based and Contributions-based JSA and ESA on an equal basis

Support under Part VI of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999
Guarantee element of State Pension Credit

Working Tax Credit run-on – paid for four weeks after the person stops qualifying for Working Tax Credit

Universal Credit – during the initial roll-out of the benefit.

More on Pupil Premium. This is important!

If your child is in Reception or Key Stage 1, they are entitled to a free school meal automatically. However… if you are on certain benefits you can still apply for your child to also receive the Pupil Premium. We need this! It is anonymous and there is no stigma. Lots of our pupils are entitled to it.
If you even think you might be entitled, please ask us. We can even help with the application, which is very simple and almost instant.
Full details are available here: